crossing the border - the interdependence of foreign policy and racial justice in the united states

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Crossing the Border: The Interdependence ofForeign Policy and Racial Justice in the

United States

By Natsu Taylor Saito*

I. INTRODUCTION

1 Scholars, social activists, and policy makers often regard the UnitedStates' foreign policy as it relates to human rights and its domestic policywith respect to race as distinct areas, separated by the nation's border.Although this border exists geographically, through the assertion ofjurisdiction, and in the recognition of citizenship, is there really a borderbetween our foreign and domestic policy in these matters? The U.S.government is often criticized for failing to comply with internationalhuman rights law and for perpetuating economic and racial inequality inits foreign policy. Racism within the United States is recognized aspervasive and virulent, but generally considered unrelated to U.S. foreignpolicy. For the most part, scholars and activists concentrate on either theinternational or the domestic realm, reflecting a widely accepted

assumption that the problems confronted in each are distinct. There is,however, evidence that this border between the two is much morepermeable than contemporary legal analyses or social attitudes suggest.

2 In fact, because perceptions of and attitudes toward those who areregarded as racial or ethnic minorities flow quite readily across this border,racism towards those outside the United States makes discriminationwithin this country seem more acceptable; the ill-treatment of racial andethnic minorities within our borders, in turn, makes it easier to disregard

* Associate Professor, Georgia State University College of Law. This article was initiallypresented as part of a panel on Critical Race Theory and International Human Rights at theCritical Race Theory Conference held at Yale Law School in November, 1997. I am grateful toBerta Esperanza Hernandez-Truyol for organizing the panel, to C. Cooper Knowles for many

hours of research, to the Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project for generously sharinginformation on the internment of Japanese Peruvians, to the members of the Original LegalScholarship Collaborative Project who encouraged my research in this area, and to theeditorial staff of the Yale Human Rights & Development Law Journal. This research has beensupported by a grant from the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund and by the Georgia StateUniversity College of Law. Special thanks go to Kelly Jordan for thinking and re-thinkingthese concepts with me through this article's many iterations.


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54 YALE HUMAN RIGHTS & DEVELOPMENT L.J. [Vol. 1

the rights and humanity of those outside the border. This attitudemanifests itself in many ways, one of which is the United States'

willingness to disregard international law, particularly human rights law.3 It is a mistake to think that we can remedy discrimination againstAmericans while allowing our government to treat people who live inother countries or carry different passports as not deserving of full, or evenbasic, human rights. Taking such a position allows the basis of thediscrimination to be constantly re-created at the same time that we deploreits consequences. It is like cutting off the head of a weed while fertilizingits roots. This cycle is especially problematic in the United States becauseour population has cultural and historic ties with so many parts of theworld. We cannot expect a formal legal distinction between "citizens" and"non-citizens," or "Americans" and "foreigners" to protect the rights ofracial or ethnic minorities simply because we live inside the U.S. border,

1

particularly when prejudice and disregard move so easily across its

territorial boundaries.4 We have been conditioned to define ourselves in terms of

citizenship, and to think of ourselves in relation to the border.2

Withrespect to human rights, we uncritically accept the distinction between"Americans" and "foreigners," and frame the struggle for justice andhuman decency in terms of "civil rights" for those at home and "humanrights" for those overseas. This is reinforced by the belief that the U.S.Constitution provides significantly more protection than is afforded byinternational law, and that we can only take advantage of this higher levelof protection by maintaining the power of the border.

5 Because these concepts are so deeply rooted in our thinking, it iseasier to see the connections between foreign and domestic policy if weleave aside, for the moment, the concepts of race and citizenship, and think

in terms of the identification of the "other." The distinction between "us"

1. On the relationship between citizenship and the perception of foreignness, see

generally Neil Gotanda,Asian American Rights and the "Miss Saigon Syndrome,"in ASIANAMERICANS AND THE SUPREME COURT 1087 (Hyung-chan Kim ed., 1992); Kevin R. Johnson,"Aliens" and the U.S. Immigration Laws: The Social and Legal Construction of Nonpersons, 28 U.MIAMI INTER-AM. L. REV. 263 (1997) (examining the legal, social, and political importance ofthe term, "alien"); Kevin R. Johnson, Racial Hierarchy, Asian Americans and Latinos as"Foreigners," and Social Change: Is Law the Way to Go?, 76 OR. L. REV. (1997) (noting thecomplexities of racial hierarchy); Yxta Maya Murray, The Latino-American Crisis of Citizenship,31 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 503, 506 (1998) (examining "how the United States government preventsmany Latino-American citizens from 'belonging' to the United States collective bystigmatizing aspects of Latino-American identity"); Juan F. Perea,Los Olvidados: On the Makingof Invisible People, 70 N.Y.U. L. REV. 965, 966 (1995) (explaining how "American culture,history, and laws make 'invisible people' out of American Latinos . . . ."); Natsu Taylor Saito,

Alien and Non-Alien Alike: Citizenship, "Foreignness," and Racial Hierarchy in American Law, 76OR. L. REV. 261 (1997) (explaining the role of "foreignness" in the racialized identification ofAsian Americans); and Natsu Taylor Saito,Model Minority, Yellow Peril: Functions of"Foreignness" in the Construction of Asian American Legal Identity, 4 ASIAN L.J. 71 (1997) (arguingthat the depiction of Asian Americans as a model minority masks the discrimination sufferedby them).

2. See generally Robert S. Chang,A Meditation on Borders, in IMMIGRANTS OUT!: THE NEWNATIVISM AND THE ANTI-IMMIGRANT IMPULSE IN THE UNITED STATES 244-245 (Juan F. Perea ed.,1997).


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1998] Crossing the Border 55

and "them" is, of course, one that affects all social interaction, creatingcomplex layers of overlapping identities. Here, however, I am limiting the

term to the kind of "otherness" that is ascribed on the basis of what wecommonly call racial or ethnic characteristics. It thus encompasses peopleof color, people who speak languages other than English, and people fromsignificantly different cultural traditions. What makes this concept of"otherness" more confusingand correspondingly, more usefulis that,unlike distinctions based on fixed characteristics such as "race" 3 ornationality, "otherness" mutates in response to social and political change.Thus, for much of our history, African Americans have been defined as"other," based on the strict racial classifications that emerged in theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries to help create and maintain theinstitution of slavery. Nonetheless, we see current attempts to enlistAfrican Americans, as U.S. citizens, in campaigns to restrict the rights ofrecent immigrants.

4While Cuban Americans have sometimes been

identified as "other" or "foreign" based on their national origin, we haverecently seen distinctions made on the basis of race, class, and politicalaffiliation between the Cuban Americans who came to the United States inthe 1960s, now portrayed as "insiders," and more recent Cuban immigrants,generally poorer and darker-skinned, who are portrayed as "others."

6 Although who is "other" can change over time, once people havebeen identified as outsiders, public perceptions of them often do not keeppace with advances in their legal status. This is illustrated by the legacy ofslavery. The portrayal of Africans as less than humanand therefore notdeserving of human rightsas a rationale for slavery created a basis forongoing oppression of African Americans that did not end with the

3. "Race" is increasingly being recognized as a social construct, rather than an immutable

biological characteristic. Justice White, writing for the majority in St. Francis College v. Al-Khazraji, 481 U.S. 604 (1987), said, "[i]t has been found that differences between individuals ofthe same race are often greater than the differences between the 'average' individuals ofdifferent races. These observations and others have led some, but not all, scientists toconclude that racial classifications are for the most part sociopolitical, rather than biological innature." Id. at 610 n.4. See generally Anthony Appiah, The Uncompleted Argument: Du Bois andthe Illusion of Race, in "RACE," WRITING AND DIFFERENCE 21, 22 (Henry Louis Gates, Jr. ed.,1986) (discussing how Du Bois came to "gradually, though never completely, assimilate theunbiological nature of races."); MICHAEL OMI & HOWARD WINANT, RACIAL FORMATION IN THEUNITED STATES: FROM THE 1960S TO THE 1990S (2d ed. 1994) (discussing paradigms of racebased on concepts of class, ethnicity, and nationality); Ian Haney-Lopez,The SocialConstruction of Race: Some Observations on Illusion, Fabrication, and Choice , 29 HARV. C.R.-C.L. L.REV. 1 (1994) (critiquing existing theories of race and advancing a new one based on historicalsocial relationships).This recognition has, in turn, led to the use of "race" as a verb meaning that racial identity isbeing ascribed. See, e.g., Lani Guinier, (E)Racing Democracy: The Voting Rights Cases, 108 HARV.

L. REV. 109 (1994) (using play-on-words in the title to criticize the refusal of the judiciary totake race into account when interpreting the Voting Rights Act); Barbara Phillips Sullivan, TheSong That Never Ends: New Verses About Affirmative Action, 23 S.U. L. REV. 157, 161 (1996)(stating that "de-racing" is "routinely done by whites and usually noticed by African-Americans").

4. See Reginald Leamon Robinson, "The Other Against Itself": Deconstructing the ViolentDiscourse Between Korean and African Americans, 67 S. CAL. L. REV. 15 (1993) (discussing thehistory and social context of relations between African American and Korean Americancommunities).


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granting of citizenship or formal legal equality.5 As the Dred Scott decision6

made painfully clear, until the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment,7

persons of African descent were not considered citizens, or even "persons,"under the law.8

From Jim Crow laws9

to the Kerner Commission10

tocontemporary reports of racial violence and discrimination,

11we see the

lingering effects of the viewpoints that once rationalized slavery.12

Oneresult of this history is that we cannot understand racism today withoutreference to the continuing, often unconscious, portrayal of whiteness asthe norm and African Americans as "other."

7 This article explores some of the ways in which U. S. foreign policyaffects the treatment of those peoples within the United States who areidentified as "other" based on socially constructed notions of race, ethnicity,or national origin and how, in turn, the treatment of such groups withinthe United States influences our foreign policy. In Section II, I considerhow the portrayal of peoples outside the U.S. border as "other" can both

stem from and perpetuate the ill-treatment of racial and ethnic minoritieswithin the United States. I describe some contemporary situations in

5. See generally A. LEON HIGGINBOTHAM, JR., IN THE MATTER OF COLOR: RACE AND THE

AMERICAN LEGAL PROCESS (1978) (discussing the history of slavery in the U.S.); C. VANNWOODWARD, THE STRANGE CAREER OFJIM CROW (1974) (discussing the history of laws thatpromoted racial segregation).

6. Scott v. Sanford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 454 (1857) (holding that the Court did not havejurisdiction to hear Scott's challenge to his enslavement because, being of African descent, hecould not be a citizen of Missouri). See generally DON E. FEHRENBACHER, THE DRED SCOTTCASE: ITS SIGNIFICANCE IN AMERICAN LAW AND POLITICS (1978) (discussing Scott).

7. U.S. CONST. amend. XIV.8. Justice Taney, writing for the majority found, not only that slaves were not citizens, but

that all African Americans, even free blacks were not meant to be full-fledged citizens underthe U.S. Constitution. SeeScott, 60 U.S. at 403-4.

9. On laws mandating racial segregation, see PAULI MURRAY, STATES' LAWS ON RACE ANDCOLOR (1951) (describing segregation laws in each state of the U.S.);WOODWARD, supra note 5.

10. REPORT OF THE NAT'L ADVISORY COMM. ON CIVIL DISORDERS (1968). Appointed byPresident Johnson in 1967 following massive civil uprisings, the Kerner Commission reportedfrankly that "[s]egregation and poverty have created in the racial ghetto a destructiveenvironment totally unknown to most white Americans." Id. at 2.

11. See, e.g., ANDREW HACKER, TWO NATIONS: BLACK AND WHITE, SEPARATE, HOSTILE,UNEQUAL (1992) (assessing the impact of racial discrimination on employment, education,criminal justice, and politics); Charles Sumner Stone, Jr., Thucydides' Law of History, or fromKerner, 1968 to Hacker, 1992, 71 N.C. L. REV. 1711 (1993) (measuring black-white progress byassessing the fairness of media coverage).

12. Martin Luther King, Jr. observed in 1964 the relationship between the continuinginfluence of slavery and involvement in international politics:

For those who ask the question, "Aren't you a Civil Rights leader?" andthereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have thisfurther answer. In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern

Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: "To save thesoul of America." We were convinced that we could not limit our visionto certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction thatAmerica would never be free or saved from itself unless the descendantsof its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear.

Martin Luther King, Jr., A Time to Break Silence, Speech Before New York's Riverside Church(Apr. 4, 1967) [hereinafter A Time to Break Silence], reprinted inTHE EYES ON THE PRIZE CIVILRIGHTS READER 389-390 (Clayborne Carson et al. eds., 1991) [hereinafterEYES ON THE PRIZEREADER].


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which the U.S. government has exhibited a flagrant disregard for humanrights and international law in our foreign policy, and the adverse effect

this disregard has on racial and ethnic minorities at home. In Section III, Ipresent a case study, the currently pending legal action regarding theUnited States' kidnapping, holding hostage, and incarceration of JapanesePeruvians during World War II, and relate this policy to discriminationagainst Japanese Americans, discrimination which extended to the point ofthreatening large-scale deportations of U.S. citizens. Section IV focuses onthe important role international law can play in developing governmentalpolicies that promote human rights for racial and ethnic minority groupsboth at home and in other countries. I conclude in Section V that anintegral part of the struggle for racial justice at home is the insistence thatour government comply with international law and treat those who areidentified as "foreign" or "other" with respect.

II. FOREIGN POLICY AND DOMESTIC DISCRIMINATION: THE "OTHER" INSIDEAND OUTSIDE THE BORDER

8 The identification of some peoples as "other," the distinguishing of"them" from "us," is often used as an explanation of why some peoplecontrol more resources, are regarded with more favor, or wield morepower. In the 1980s and 1990s the distinction between "Americans" and"foreigners" seems to have taken on added significance, strengthening thenotion that those who are foreign need not be treated as well as those whoare American.

13Sometimes this is seen in American

14attitudes towards

other nations and their peoples. Because it affects them and not us, it hasapparently been acceptable to most Americans to disregard slaughter inthe Balkans,

15to buy products made by child labor in Pakistan

16or prison

labor in China, and to allow our government to mine Nicaraguan watersand use drug money to fund the Contras.

17There has been little public

13. See generally PETER BRIMELOW, ALIEN NATION: A COMMON SENSE APPROACH TO

AMERICA'S IMMIGRATION DISASTER (1995) (discussing immigration and its consequences).Butsee Hiroshi Motomura, Whose Alien Nation? Two Models of Constitutional Immigration Law, 94MICH. L. REV. 1927, 1939-1946 (1996) (reviewing Peter Brimelow, Alien Nation: A CommonSense Approach to America's Immigration Disaster (1995)).

14. I use the term "American" because we do not have another adjective meaning "of theUnited States," but note many Mexicans, Canadians, and Central and South Americansconsider it chauvinistic to use the term "American" to refer only to people from the UnitedStates.

15. See Kelly A. Childers, Comment, United Nations Peacekeeping Forces in the Balkan Warsand the Changing Role of Peacekeeping Forces in the Post-Cold War World, 8 TEMP. INT'L & COMP.

L.J. 117, 123-129 (1994). See generally John M. Scheib, Comment, Threshold of Lasting Peace: TheBosnian Property Commission, Multi-Ethnic Bosnia and Foreign Policy, 24SYRACUSEJ. INT'L L. &COM. 119 (1997) (discussing the work of the Property Commission, the need to attain a multi-ethnic Bosnia, and the implications for U.S. foreign policy).

16. See Mark Shapiro & Trudle Styler, Children of a Lesser God: Child Labor in Pakistan,HARPER'S BAZAAR, Apr. 1996, at 204; see also Claudia R. Brewster, Restoring Childhood: Savingthe World's Children from Toiling in Textile Sweatshops, 16 J.L. & COM. 191, 197-98 (1997).

17. See Military and Paramilitary Activities (Nicar. v. United States), 1984 I.C.J. 392, 442(finding that the International Court of Justice had jurisdiction and that the application by


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outcry over the government's kidnapping Mexican citizens in blatantdisregard of international law,

18or its refusal to ratify international

conventions

19

or pay monies owed the United Nations.

20

9 Sometimes the distinction between them and us focuses oncitizenship, blaming the cost of social programs on immigration, andcutting back the constitutional protections and social benefits available tothose who, while they may be legal residents, are not U.S. citizens.

21What

Nicaragua was admissible). The United States refused to participate in the proceedings andannounced its intent to terminate its acceptance of the Court's compulsory jurisdiction. See id.at 395. In 1986, the ICJ held that the United States had violated customary international lawand its Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation (FCN) treaty with Nicaragua by miningNicaraguan territorial waters, attacking ports and other facilities, and financing and trainingthe contra forces. See Military and Paramilitary Activities (Nicar. v. United States) 1986 I.C.J.14, 538-42.

18. See United States v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. 655, 659-70 (1992) (allowing a criminaldefendant to be tried in federal court despite his transborder abduction); William J. Aceves,

The Legality of Transborder Abductions: A Study ofUnited States v. Alvarez-Machain, 3 SW. J.L. &TRADE AM. 101, 102 (1996). Despite the holding in United States v. Toscanino, 500 F.2d 267 (2dCir. 1974), that courts were required to divest themselves of jurisdiction when a defendanthad been abducted in violation of international treaties, federal courts have routinely foundjurisdiction in cases of abduction by U.S. agents. See, e.g., United States v. Reed, 639 F.2d 896(2d Cir. 1981) (holding that defendant's alleged abduction did not constitute a violation of dueprocess); United States ex rel. Lujan v. Gengler, 510 F.2d 62 (2d Cir. 1975) (same); United Statesv. Chapa-Garza, 62 F.3d 118 (5th Cir. 1995) (same); United States v. Herrera, 504 F.2d 859 (5thCir. 1974) (holding that a defendant could be tried in federal court despite the alleged failureof the United States to follow orderly processes of extradition).

19. The United States has signed but not ratified a number of significant treaties,including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, opened for signature Nov. 20, 1989, 28I.L.M. 1448; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination AgainstWomen, opened for signature Dec. 18, 1979, 1249 U.N.T.S. 13; the American Convention onHuman Rights, opened for signature Nov. 22, 1969,144 U.N.T.S. 123; and the InternationalCovenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, opened for signature Dec. 16, 1966, 993

U.N.T.S. 3.The United States has neither signed nor ratified the Second Optional Protocol tothe International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Aiming at the Abolition of the DeathPenalty, G.A. Res. 44/128, U.N. GAOR, 44th Sess., Annex, Supp. No. 49, U.N. Doc. A/44/49(1989); the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, entered into force Feb.28, 1987, 25 I.L.M. 519; the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil andPolitical Rights, opened for signature Dec. 16, 1966, 999 U.N.T.S. 302; Convention Relating to theStatus of Refugees, opened for signature July 28, 1951, 189 U.N.T.S. 137; and the Inter-AmericanConvention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women, 27U.S.T. 3301, entered into force Apr. 22, 1949. Louis Henkin notes that the package ofreservations, understandings and declarations the United States has attached to treatyratification has evoked much criticism. See Louis Henkin, U.S. Ratification of the Human RightsConventions: The Ghost of Senator Bricker, 89 AM. J. INT'L L. 341 (1995).

20. The United States owes more than $1 billion in United Nations dues. See Emilio J.Cardenas, Financing the United Nations' Activities: A Matter of Commitment, 1995 U. ILL. L. REV.147, 151-52 (1995) (examining the current financial plight of the United Nations); John NortonMoore, Toward a New Paradigm: Enhanced Effectiveness in United Nations Peacekeeping, Collective

Security, and War Avoidance, 37 VA. J. INT'L L. 811, 878-80 (1997) (arguing that it is wrong forthe United States to fail to pay the dues it owes to the United Nations); The United States AsDeadbeat: Debt to U.N. Should Be Paid In Full; The Nation's Honor is at State , L.A. TIMES, June 17,1997, at B6 (asserting that the United States owes the United Nations $300-400 million morethan what Congress says it is prepared to pay).

21. See generally Linda Bosniak,Membership, Equality, and the Difference that Alienage Makes,69 N.Y.U. L. REV. 1047 (1994) (providing a theoretical framework for current debates overimmigration); Hiroshi Motomura, Immigration and Alienage, Federalism and Proposition 187, 35VA. J. INT'L L. 201 (1994) (suggesting an Equal Protection model to explain limits on state


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started as a movement to cut back on social services provided to those whoentered this country without the government's approval has quickly

expanded to cutbacks in the rights and privileges of those who are legalpermanent residents, but who are also portrayed as "other." Evenconstitutional protections, such as the Fourth Amendment's prohibition ofunlawful searches and seizures, which have long been held to apply to all"persons," are being restricted on the basis of immigration status.

22

10 There is a spillover effect whereby these attitudes affect even thosewho, while they may be citizens of the United States, are still identified as"foreign" or "other." Thus, civil rights groups have documented increasedviolence toward and discrimination against Mexican Americans in thewake of California's Proposition 187 and the recent changes in federalimmigration and welfare laws.

23To the extent that our government treats

people poorly because they are not "us" we must recognize that one day itwill probably treat some of "us" with the same disregard. The devaluing of

human life overseas contributes to racism and nativism at home and, inturn, racism at home is exported in foreign policy that harms people,particularly people of color, in other countries.

11 Numerous examples demonstrate the negative impact U.S. foreignpolicy has on racial and ethnic minorities in the United States today,regardless of the fact that the individuals affected live on this side of theborder and may, in fact, be U.S. citizens. The United States' disregard forinternational law and human rights in Southeast Asia during the VietnamWar era is well documented.

24One small but telling example of this has

recently come to light in connection with the murder of hundreds ofwomen, children and old men at My Lai in 1968. Six months before thismassacre, the Pentagon had received a report entitled "Alleged Atrocitiesby U.S. Military Forces in South Vietnam," which showed that all but six of

the 179 Marine second lieutenants interviewed would mistreat a prisonerto obtain desired information, most would kill a prisoner in the case of a

activity in immigration and alienage matters); Michael Scaperlanda, Partial Membership: Aliensand the Constitutional Community, 81 IOWA L. REV. 707 (1996) (arguing that the Supreme Courtshould make explicit that its federal alienage jurisprudence rests on the process of communalformation, not on inherent governmental power).

22. See United States v. Barona, 56 F.3d 1087, 1094 (9th Cir. 1994) (questioning theapplicability of the Fourth Amendment to non-citizens); Bill Wallace, Court Rejects IllegalImmigrant's Plea on Searches; Ruling Says Suspect Had No Standing to Question Practices, S.F.CHRON., Oct. 21, 1997, at A20 (describing a U.S. district court's finding that an undocumentedresident of twelve years, married to a permanent resident and father of a U.S. citizen, was notprotected against unconstitutional searches and seizures). See generally Victor C. Romero,Note, Whatever Happened to the Fourth Amendment?: Undocumented Immigrants' Rights After INS

v. Lopez-Mendoza and United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 65 S. CAL. L. REV. 999 (1992)(analyzing the possibility of Fourth Amendment violations in the INS enforcement of druglaws).

23. See Nancy Cervantes et al.,Hate Unleashed: Los Angeles in the Aftermath of Proposition187, 17 CHICANO-LATINO L. REV. 1, 10-20 (1995) (reporting cases of discrimination againstcitizens and legal immigrants).

24. See generally ROBERT S. MCNAMARA & BRIAN VANDEMARK, IN RETROSPECT: THETRAGEDY AND LESSONS OF VIETNAM (1995) (presenting a litany of mistakes made by the UnitedStates in Vietnam).


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firefight, and most lacked a "'clear understanding of their responsibility inregard to the Geneva Convention.'"

25Faced with this information, the U.S.

military did not take it upon itself to teach its soldiers about theirresponsibilities under international law. Instead, the report was orderedrewritten and subsequently placed in "'review status,' effectively killingit."

26The atrocities at My Lai and numerous other villages were a

predictable result of the government's disregard for human rights law.Our policies also resulted in the bombing of civilians, the widescale use ofland mines, and the use of defoliants and other chemical weapons by theUnited States during the Vietnam War.

27After the war, hundreds of

thousands of Southeast Asian refugees came to the United States, many ofthem forced to leave their homelands because of their collaboration withthe U.S. military. Despite the fact that the Southeast Asians who havecome to the United States have been those who were on "our" side, theyhave encountered widespread discrimination and violence.

28Furthermore,

because Southeast Asians in the United States are racially identified withthose of Korean, Chinese, and Japanese descent, the discrimination has acompounding effect making, for example, Chinese Americans the targets ofviolence related to both the war in Vietnam and resentment of Japaneseauto makers.

29In working to ensure that Asian Americans are treated with

respect, we cannot ignore the legacy of U.S. violations of human rightsduring the war in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and the portrayal duringthat period of Southeast Asians as "gooks."

12 The same is true for Haitian Americans. The recent history of what

25. Seymour M. Hersh,My Lai, and Its Omens,N.Y. TIMES, Mar. 16, 1998, at A25.26. Id.

27. See, e.g., Noam Chomsky,After "Pinkville", in THE CHOMSKY READER, supra,at 259(describing the massacre of Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops at Song My); Noam Chomsky,Cambodia, in THE CHOMSKY READER, supra,at 289 (relating the genocide committed by theKhmer Rouge to earlier United States actions in Cambodia); Noam Chomsky, Laos, in THECHOMSKY READER, supra,at 265 (describing United States bombardment of Laos); NoamChomsky, The Mentality of the Backroom Boys), in THE CHOMSKY READER, supra,at 269(describing the "pacification" program, including saturation bombing and the use of torture);Noam Chomsky, Vietnam and United States Global Strategy, in THE CHOMSKY READER 227(James Peck, ed. 1987) (presenting an overview of U.S. policies in Indochina).

28. See generally NATIONAL ASIAN PACIFIC AM. LEGAL CONSORTIUM, AUDIT OF VIOLENCEAGAINST ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICANS: THE VIOLENT IMPACT ON A GROWING COMMUNITY (1996)(4th Ann. Rpt.); Racial Violence Against Asian Americans, 106 HARV. L. REV. 1926 (1993)(describing racialized violence against those perceived as former enemies).

29. In 1982 Vincent Chin, a young Chinese American, was beaten to death by two laid-offauto workers in Detroit who blamed him for their loss of employment. See United States v.Ebens, 800 F.2d 1422 (6th Cir. 1986); Racial Violence Against Asian Americans, supra note 28, at

1928; see also Paula C. Johnson, The Social Construction of Identity in Criminal Cases: CinemaVerite and the Pedagogy of Vincent Chin, 1 MICH. J. RACE & L. 347 (1996) (analyzing the Chincase in the context of U.S. racial history). In 1989 Jim Loo, also Chinese American, was killedby assailants who called him "gook" and "chink" and blamed him for the death of Americansoldiers in Vietnam. See U.S. COMM'N ON CIVIL RIGHTS, CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUES FACING ASIANAMERICANS IN THE 1990S, at 26-31 (1992). See also Chris Helm, One Tough Lama, HARPER'SMAG., Aug. 1996, at 11 (interviewing 13 year-old Tibetan Lama Pema Jones, who says "[t]heycall me names like 'nip' and 'gook'. . . . Some skinhead doesn't care whether I'm Tibetan orChinese. He just wants to stomp my head").


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has been called "the world's first black republic"30 is one of massiveviolations of international human rights law. The United States occupied

Haiti from 1915 to 1934, a period which was followed by two decades ofpolitical chaos and three decades of rule by the brutally repressiveDuvaliers.

31In 1990, a Catholic priest and human rights activist, Jean-

Bertrand Aristide, was the overwhelming winner of the country's firstdemocratically held presidential elections. His government was ousted ina 1991 military coup, and thousands of Haitians took to the sea to escape amilitary regime that engaged in arbitrary detentions and disappearances,torture, and summary executions. Despite the fact that these human rightsviolations were widely known and many of the refugees would havequalified for political asylum in the United States, over 40,000 Haitian "boatpeople" were stopped and turned back by the U.S. Coast Guard on the highseas, outside of U.S. jurisdiction.

32The United States contended that such

interdiction was allowed by a 1981 agreement between the Reagan

administration and the regime of Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier in1981, which provided that the Haitians interdicted on the high seas were tobe interviewed, and those found to have a credible fear of politicalpersecution were not to be returned to Haiti.

33Questionable as this

agreement was, at least it recognized the principle of nonrefoulement, awell-established tenet of international law that prohibits persons frombeing returned to a country in which they are likely to be subjected topersecution.

34In 1992, however, President Bush issued an executive order

which allowed the Coast Guard to interdict Haitians on the high seas andreturn them to Haiti without any screening of their claims for politicalrefugee status.

35Despite the clear violations of international law and the

human rights of the Haitians involved, this practice was upheld by the U.S.Supreme Court in Sale v. Haitian Centers Council,

36a case Thomas Jones has

called the "Dred Scott Case of Immigration Law."37 As noted by Judge

30. Thomas David Jones,The Haitian Refugee Crisis: A Quest for Human Rights, 15 MICH. J.

INT'L L. 77, 83 (1993) (noting that Haiti won its independence from France in 1804 after asuccessful slave insurrection);William G. O'Neill, The Roots of Human Rights Violations in Haiti,7 GEO. IMMIGR. L.J. 87, 87 (1993).

31. See Jones, supra note 30, at 83-84; O'Neill, supra note 30, at 90-94.32. See Jones, supra note 30, at 85-86; see also AMNESTY INT'L, HAITI: THE HUMAN RIGHTS

TRAGEDY 37-39 (1992) (reporting on the situation of Haitian asylum-seekers); LAWYERS' COMM.FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, PAPER LAWS, STEEL BAYONETS: BREAKDOWN OF THE RULE OF LAW IN HAITI(1990) (describing human rights abuses in Haiti and the failure of U.S. policy to address theproblem); ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES, REPORT ON THE SITUATION IN HAITI,OEA/Ser. L/V/II. 83, Doc. 18, at 41-45 (Mar. 9, 1993).

33. See Jones, supra note 30, at 93.34. See United Nations General Assembly Declaration on Territorial Asylum, G.A. Res.

2312 (XXII), U.N. GAOR, 22nd Sess., Supp. No. 16, at 81, U.N. Doc. A/6716 (1968); ProtocolRelating to the Status of Refugees, Jan. 31, 1967, 606 U.N.T.S. 267, 6 I.L.M. 78 (1967);Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, July 28, 1951, art. 33, 189 U.N.T.S. 137, 176.

35. See Exec. Order No. 12,807, 57 Fed. Reg. 23,133 (1992) (the "Kennebunkport Order");seeJones, supra note 30, at 94.

36. 509 U.S. 125, 188 (1993).37. Jones, supra note 30, at 102. Jones notes that by "restricting the access to the high seas

and interfering with the movement of refugees on the high seas, arguably, both Haiti and theUnited States are in violation of conventional and customary international law." Id. at 111.


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Hatchett, dissenting from the Eleventh Circuit's decision to uphold theinterdictions, "Under existing law, any refugee may reach the shores of the

United States . . . except Haitian refugees. . . . The primary purpose of theprogram was . . . to keep Haitians out of the United States."38

13 Harold Koh summarizes the situation:

[W]hen refugees started to arrive, we began to view the refugees,not the restoration of democracy, as the problem. We abandonedthe safe-haven principle . . . . We undercut international legalstandards at home. We defended illegal violations of internationaltreaties before our courts and violated the principle of non-neutrality. . . . The United States acted as a broker, not as anadvocate of democracy, cutting a deal between the legitimatelyelected government and the coup leaders. . . . The United Statesinsisted on amnesty for gross human rights abuses, effectively

eliminating any incentive for the military officials to discontinuethese abuses. . . . We ignored human rights abuses while the . . .negotiations continued. Then deaths occurred. . . . Supporters ofthe democratic government were shot in the street. . . . [F]inally, asthe deadline for returning the Aristide government approached,we sent two hundred American soldiers with sidearms toHaiti . . . . When Haitians protested at the dock, we turned our boataround and departed.

39

It was the official policy of the U.S. government to countenance suchhuman rights abuses. Widely disseminated newspaper and televisionaccounts portrayed the turning back of boatloads of Haitians on the high

seas, and the slaughter of civilians by members of the Haitian militarywhom we had trained and paid.40

Such actions cannot be portrayed as

38. Haitian Refugee Ctr., Inc. v. Baker, 949 F.2d 1109, 1111-12 (11th Cir. 1991) (Hatchett, J.,

dissenting).39. Harold Hongju Koh, Democracy and Human Rights in the United States Foreign Policy?:

Lessons from the Haitian Crisis, 48 SMU L. REV. 189, 198-199 (1994); accord Creola Johnson,Quarantining H.I.V. Infected Haitians: United States' Violations of International Law at GuantanamoBay, 37 HOW. L.J. 305 (1994) (arguing that detaining Haitians who were either HIV-positive orsuspected of being HIV-positive violated international law); Harold Hongju Koh, The"HaitiParadigm" in United States Human Rights Policy, 103 YALE L.J. 2391, 2435 (1994) (explaining theHaitian policy and judicial response as exemplifying "the possibilities and limits oftransnational public law litigation"; Louis N. Schulze, Jr., Note, The United States' Detention ofRefugees: Evidence of the Senate's Flawed Ratification of the International Covenant on Civil andPolitical Rights, 23 NEW ENG. J. ON CRIM. & CIV. CONFINEMENT 641, 642 (1997) ("focus[ing]

upon the international circumstances and repercussions of our nation's refugee detentionpolicy".

40. See Kathleen Marie Whitney, SIN, FRAPH, and the CIA: U.S. Covert Action in Haiti, 3SW. J. L. & TRADE AM. 303, 304, 315-30 (1996) (documenting U.S. Central Intelligence Agency(CIA) involvement with leaders of the Haitian government, military, and police, andindicating that "the CIA has provided training, funds, and equipment to the corrupt Haitianmilitary). Whitney states that the activities of the CIA "violate international laws that protectthe rights of sovereignty and self-determination and prohibit intervention into the domesticaffairs of other states. " Id. at 304.


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acceptable U.S. foreign policy without also conveying the notion thatHaitian lives are worth less than American lives. While such policies were

carried out by different branches of the federal government, extensivemedia coverage disseminated the message of the policies to the public.Consequently, it is not surprising to find that police officers and othergovernment agents brutalize Haitian immigrants. The recent police torturein Brooklyn of a Haitian security guard gave rise to well-justified publicoutrage and political organizing within Haitian American communities.41

Effective prevention of such abuses, however, will require not only a focuson discrimination at home, but also on U.S. foreign policy. Just asdiscrimination against African Americans did not end when they weregranted citizenship, we cannot expect discrimination to stop the moment aperson crosses over the border.

14 One can find examples of the transborder effects of discriminationwith respect to almost any racial or ethnic minority group in the United

States. Our government has been roundly criticized by the worldcommunity (as well as many Americans, including former attorney generalRamsey Clark) for the enormous numbers of civilian deaths resulting fromthe bombing of Iraq during the Gulf War.

42It does not seem reasonable

that we could deem the lives of Iraqis and citizens of other Middle Easterncountries to be worthless (at least in comparison to our desire for oil)

43and

constantly identify Arabs as "terrorists,"44

and yet expect that Arab-Americans will be treated with respect in this country. The "war on drugs"also provides many examples of the conflation of the domestic and the

41. See Timothy Williams, Point of View: In Wake of Attack; Haitian Immigrants Say Political

Power Needed, L.A. SENTINEL, Sept. 3,1997, at A7; see alsoJames Ridgeway & Jean Jean-Pierre,Louima Time: An Alienated and Angered Haitian American Community Fights Back, VILLAGE

VOICE, Sept. 2, 1997 (noting that in a fact-finding mission to Haiti in 1982, the Mayor of NewYork, Rudolf Giuliani, reported that there was no political repression but that peopleemigrated for economic reasons); Ron Daniels, Vantage Point: Racism, Anti-Immigrant FeverFuel Police Brutality, L.A. SENTINEL, Oct. 15, 1997, at A7 (arguing that the crisis surroundingthe assault on Abner Louima is "much deeper than just police brutality, it goes to the heart ofthe issue of social and economic injustice").

42. See RAMSEY CLARK, THE FIRE THIS TIME: U.S. WAR CRIMES IN THE GULF 83(1992)(noting that approximately 150,000 civilians died as a result of the US attack); see also MichaelHeld, The Fire This Time: U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf, 26 N.Y.U. J. INT'L L. & POL. 157 (1993)(reviewing Clark's book). For a critique of Clark's view, see Keith Barber, No Fire This Time:False Accusations of American War Crimes in the Persian Gulf, 146 MIL. L. REV. 235 (1994)(reviewing Clark's book).

43. See DAVID CAMPBELL, POLITICS WITHOUT PRINCIPLE: SOVEREIGNTY, ETHICS AND THENARRATIVES OF THE GULF WAR (1993); see alsoJean Manas, Beyond Right and Wrong?: ThoughtsEngendered by a Post-Modernist Critique of the Gulf War, 36 HARV. INT'L L.J. 245 (1995) (bookreview).

44. See generally ARAB-AMERICAN ANTI-DISCRIMINATION COMM., 1991 REPORT ON ANTI-ARAB HATE CRIMES: POLITICAL AND HATE VIOLENCE AGAINST ARAB-AMERICANS (1992)(documenting political and hate violence against Arab-Americans, particularly showing theincrease in such violence following the Gulf War);Michael Higgins, Looking the Part: WithCriminal Profiles Being Used More Widely to Spot Possible Terrorists and Drug Couriers, Claims ofBias Are Also on the Rise, 83 A.B.A. J. 48, 50 (1997) (quoting Sam Husseini, media director of theAmerican-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Director, who states that "Arab-Americansget targeted more or less depending on world events. . . . The Gulf War, World Trade Centerbombing and Oklahoma City bombing all led to more reports of disparate treatment").


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international.45 Swept up by rhetoric against drugs, we allowed ourgovernment to invade Panama and destroy entire neighborhoods in an

effort to kidnap President Noriega, a former employee of the CentralIntelligence Agency.46

There is footage of entire city blocks being bombedand swallowed up by fires, reportedly set deliberately by the U.S.military.

47It is difficult to see how such a policy could be acceptable

without also condoning the Philadelphia city government's decision to"fight crime," in the form of the MOVE organization, by bombing andburning the entire block of the neighborhood in which they lived.

48

15 Although the previous cases focus on ways in which disregard forhuman rights in our foreign policy comes home to roost, domestic racismalso infects our international policies. Beginning with early attempts tojustify slavery in the United States, African peoples have often beenportrayed as savage or uncivilized. This view can still be seen in newscoverage which portrays African nations in a constant state of "tribal"

warfare, with governments run by corrupt strongmen who stand by astheir people die of malnutrition and infectious diseases. The racism in thisperspective allowed the United States to support white supremacistgovernments in southern Africa for years. It has allowed the United Statesto wait for many months before responding to widespread famine in

45. See generally Mark Andrew Sherman, United States International Drug Control Policy,

Extradition, and the Rule of Law in Colombia, 15 NOVA L. REV. 661 (1991) (describing how theUnited States' international drug policy often involves coercion, impeding its effectiveness);Peter S. McCarthy, Comment, United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez: Extending the Ker-FrisbieDoctrine to Meet the Modern Challenges Posed by the International Drug Trade, 27 NEW ENG. L.REV. 1067 (1993) (examining the issue of government-sponsored kidnapping in light of theVerdugo-Urquidez decision).

46. In December, 1989, approximately 24,000 U.S. troops invaded Panama, inflictingsignificant casualties, both civilian and military, and destroying much property. GeneralManuel Noriega, head of the Panamanian state (and formerly on the CIA payroll), wasarrested by U.S. forces, brought to the United States, and put on trial for criminal conspiracyto violate U.S. law. See United States v. Noriega, 683 F. Supp. 1373 (S.D. Fla. 1988); see alsoMark Andrew Sherman,An Inquiry Regarding the International and Domestic Legal ProblemsPresented in United States v. Noriega, 20 U. MIAMI INTER-AM. L. REV. 393, 395 (1989) ("Noriegarepresents the ultimate intersection of United States domestic law and foreign policy, and itsprecedential value should not be understated."). Louis Henkin says,

With regret, I conclude that the invasion of Panama by the United Stateswas a clear violation of international law as embodied in the principalnorm of the U.N. Charter on which the world, under the leadership of theUnited States, built the new international order after World War II. TheUnited States did not even have a color of justification for this invasion.

Louis Henkin, The Invasion of Panama Under International Law: A Gross Violation, 29 COLUM. J.TRANSNAT'L L. 293, 312-13 (1991). For a justification of the invasion, see Anthony D'Amato,

The Invasion of Panama Was a Lawful Response to Tyranny, 84 AM. J. INT'L L. 516 (1990).47. This can be seen in the documentary film PANAMA DECEPTION (Empowerment Project

1992).48. In May 1985, the Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on a residential neighborhood,

destroying an entire city block and killing eleven people, in an attempt to arrest members ofMOVE, a radical African American political organization. See In re City of PhiladelphiaLitigation: Ramona Africa v. City of Philadelphia, 49 F.3d 945 (3d Cir. 1995); Matthew Siegel, Note,

Africa v. City of Philadelphia:The Third Circuit Drops a Bomb on Fourth Amendment Protections, 7TEMP. POL. & CIV. RTS. L. REV. 167 (1997).


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Somalia49 or to the genocide in Rwanda.50 More devastating in the long runmay be the discounting of African lives that can be seen today in our lack

of action concerning AIDS in Africa.

51

It is my belief that these policies,which have been fueled by racism at home, come back to influencedomestic policy toward African American teenagers in the inner cities andtoward poor people who have AIDS.

52Finally, as the border between

governmental and corporate power becomes less fixed and the ability ofnational governments to regulate business declines, we need to considernot only the government's stated policy, but also its influence, and ours, onthe actions of multinational corporations with large U.S. operations.

53We

see the same de-valuing of human life in the actions of Shell Oil inOgoniland in Nigeria,

54in the reaction to the Bhopal disaster,

55and in U.S.

49. See Robert M. Cassidy, Sovereignty Versus the Chimera of Armed Humanitarian

Intervention, 21 FLETCHER F. WORLD AFF., Fall, at 47, 59 (1997) ("The United States was very

reluctant to commit forces in Somalia until it was impelled to do so by domestic politicalfactors.").

50. See Dorinda Lea Peacock, "It Happened and It Can Happen Again": The InternationalResponse to Genocide in Rwanda, 22 N.C. J. INT'L L. & COM. REG. 899, 900-01 (1997) (noting thatthe United States and the international community "maintained a careful distance" for overtwo years of refugee crises, civil war, and genocide); see also Weekend Edition-Saturday, Mar.28, 1998, available in 1998 WL 6284798 (discussing President Clinton's apology to genocidesurvivors in Rwanda for the slow response of the United States, and noting one estimate thatthe commitment of 2,000 troops could have prevented the slaughter of 500,000 people).

51. See UN: 'We cannot afford to fail' in AIDS fight, says Secretary-General, M2 Presswire, Dec.9, 1997, available in 1997 WL 16294870 (noting the World Health Organization's new estimatethat over 20 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are infected with HIV or AIDS, two-thirds ofthe total number in the world); see also African Epidemic Reaches Unprecedented Levels, AIDSALERT SS4, Feb. 1, 1998. See generally GLOBAL AIDS POLICY (Douglas A. Feldman, ed. 1994)(including essays examining the harm done by political agendas and biases against the poorand racial minorities to the development of effective remedies).

52. CBS News reported that "President Clinton is under fire . . . from his own advisorypanel on AIDS. . . . for not getting AIDS drugs to HIV patients on Medicaid and for notfunding needle-exchange programs." CBS Evening News (CBS television broadcast, Dec. 7,1997), available in 1997 WL 16409290. In addition, the United States and three Europeancountries have recently been accused of "conducting unethical medical experiments onthousands of HIV-infected pregnant women in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean." Martin Kettle,

American AIDS Trials Run Into Ethics Fury, THE GUARDIAN, Sept. 19, 1997. In theseexperiments, only half of the HIV-positive women were treated with AZT. As the Guardianreports, "[t]he issue carries particular force . . . because it raises the spectre of the notoriousTuskegee research on untreated syphilis among poor blacks in Alabama, in which unknowingsufferers were denied penicillin during a 40-year study." See id; accord Sheila Dennie,Against

All Odds: Survivors of Tuskegee Syphilis Study (TSS) Receive Apology from President Clinton, TENN.TRIB., June 19, 1997, at 4 (noting that the "TSS's lasting effect is especially evident" in AfricanAmericans' attitudes toward HIV/AIDS policies); Muriel Dobbin, Clinton Warns AgainstPrejudice in Science, SACRAMENTO BEE, May 19, 1997, at A6.

53. See generally Mark Gibney & R. David Emerich, The Extraterritorial Application of United

States Law and the Protection of Human Rights: Holding Multinational Corporations to Domestic andInternational Standards, 10 TEMP. INT'L & COMP. L.J. 123 (1996) (exploring the extraterritorialapplication of U.S. law on multinational corporations).

54. See generally Charles Marecic, Note,How Many Wrongs Does It Take To Make a HumanRight?, 22 VT. L. REV. 201 (1997) (discussing the conflict between Shell Oil and the Ogoni inNigeria).

55. See generally Sudhir K. Chopra,Multinational Corporations in the Aftermath of Bhopal: TheNeed for a New Comprehensive Global Regime for Transnational Corporate Activity, 29 VAL. U. L.REV. 235 (1994) (arguing for a more comprehensive international regime in light of Bhopal);


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attitudes toward tobacco companies that have targeted Asian markets.56

III. THEJAPANESE PERUVIAN INTERNMENT: A CASE STUDY

16 In the previous part, I illustrate my proposition that our foreignand domestic policies with respect to the treatment of those identified as"other" are not demarcated by a distinct border but are, instead,interdependent phenomena. The attitudes and actions I have described gofar beyond, and are much more complicated than, what is identified asunlawful under either domestic or international legal systems.Nonetheless, if we wish to reduce the impact of racism on our foreignpolicy, and the impact of our foreign policy on our treatment of domesticminorities, compliance with international law is a good place to begin.

17 Respect for international law is important for at least two reasons.First, there is a large body of international law, both conventional and

customary, that addresses human rights in a way that is far more complexand encompassing than our domestic law, which is generally limited to thecivil and political rights of individuals.

57Second, this is a body of law that

has been constructed by the representatives of many nations. Simplyacknowledging its legitimacy is the beginning of a policy of respect forthose who are, by definition, "other." This Part considers in some detail theWorld War II internment of Japanese Peruvians, a case in which the UnitedStates government disregarded international law and the human rights ofthe individuals involved.

18 Representing the African captives in the Amistad case,58

JohnQuincy Adams argued to the Supreme Court that the United States couldnot concede to Spain's demand that the President "first turn man-robber . . .next turn jailer . . . and lastly turn catchpoll and convey [the Africandefendants to] slave-traders despoiled of their prey and thirsting forblood."

59A case currently pending in the federal courts illustrates what can

happen when the U.S. government is allowed to violate international lawwith impunity. It is a case in which the United States turned "man-robber"and "jailer" of thousands of Japanese Latin-Americans during World War IIRatna Kapur, From Human Tragedy to Human Rights: Multinational Corporate Accountability for

Human Rights Violations, 10 B.C. THIRD WORLD L.J. 1 (1990) (arguing that in light of disasterssuch as Bhopal, multinational corporations must be included in the human rights discourse).

56. SeeJonathan Wike, Note, The Marlboro Man in Asia: U.S. Tobacco and Human Rights, 29VAND. J. TRANSNAT'L L. 329 (1996) (discussing human rights issues raised by aggressivepromotion of U.S. tobacco products in Asia).

57. See generally Philip Alston, U.S. Ratification of the Covenant on Economic, Social andCultural Rights: The Need for an Entirely New Strategy, 84 AM. J. INT'L L. 365 (1990) (discussing

the skeptical attitude of the United States toward economic, social, and cultural rights); NatsuTaylor Saito, Beyond Civil Rights: Considering "Third Generation" International Human Rights Lawin the United States, 28 U. MIAMI INTER-AM. L. REV. 387 (1996-97) (proposing the incorporationof international human rights law into the discourse about rights of minorities in the UnitedStates); Barbara Stark, Economic Rights in the United States and International Human Rights Law:Toward an "Entirely New Strategy," 44 HASTINGS L.J. 79 (1992) (exploring the reasons for U.S.refusal to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights).

58. See text accompanying notes 22-26 infra.59. Donald Dale Jackson,Mutiny on the Amistad, SMITHSONIAN MAG., Dec. 1997, at 124.


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and it illustrates the connection between foreign policy and domesticpolicyspecifically, that disregard for human rights in our foreign policy

both reflects and perpetuates discrimination inside the United States.19 The evacuation and imprisonment of approximately 120,000Japanese Americans

60from the West Coast during World War II is a now-

familiar story of racism against a domestic minority.61

But until 1996 whenMochizuki v. United States,

62a class action requesting redress for the

incarceration of Japanese Latin Americans, was filed in federal districtcourt, few people knew that the U.S. government, in collaboration withvarious Latin American governments, also kidnapped, transported,incarcerated, and held hostage over 2,000 Japanese Latin Americans.Because the bulk of these people were Japanese Peruvians, this sectionfocuses on their story.

63

60. Two thirds of this number were second generation Japanese Americans who were

American citizens by birth. See RONALD TAKAKI, STRANGERS FROM A DIFFERENT SHORE 15(1989). Because the racial restrictions imposed by the Naturalization Act of 1790 (limitingnaturalization to "free white persons" and, after passage of the Fourteenth Amendment,adding persons of African descent) were not fully removed until the Naturalization Act of1952, the first generation Japanese immigrants were not eligible to become U.S. citizens. SeeIAN F. HANEY LOPEZ, WHITE BY LAW: THE LEGAL CONSTRUCTION OF RACE 1 (1996).Nonetheless, they were in the United States as permanent residents, committed to stayinghere and raising their children as Americans. Therefore, I use the term "Japanese American"to encompass this entire community, regardless of citizenship.

61. See Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), conviction vacated 584 F. Supp. 1406(N.D. Cal. 1984); Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 (1943), conviction vacated 828 F.2d591 (9th Cir. 1987). For a description of U.S. treatment of Japanese Americans, see generallyCOMMISSION ON WARTIME RELOCATION & INTERNMENT OF CIVILIANS,PERSONALJUSTICEDENIED (1982); PETER IRONS, JUSTICE AT WAR: THE STORY OF THEJAPANESE AMERICANINTERNMENT CASES (1983) [hereinafter JUSTICE AT WAR]; JAPANESE AMERICANS: FROMRELOCATION TO REDRESS (Roger Daniels et al. eds., 1991); JUSTICE DELAYED: THE RECORD OFTHEJAPANESE AMERICAN INTERNMENT CASES (Peter Irons ed., 1989) [hereinafter JUSTICEDELAYED]; MICHI NISHIURA WEGLYN, YEARS OF INFAMY: THE UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICA'SCONCENTRATION CAMPS (1996); Neil Gotanda, "Other Non-Whites" in American Legal History: AReview of Justice at War, 85 COLUM. L. REV. 1186 (1985) (reviewing PETER IRONS, JUSTICE ATWAR (1983)); Eugene V. Rostow, The Japanese-American Cases-A Disaster, 55 Yale L. J. 489(1945); and Eric K. Yamamoto, KorematsuRevisitedCorrecting the Injustice of ExtraordinaryGovernment Excess and Lax Judicial Review: Time for a Better Accommodation of National SecurityConcerns and Civil Liberties, 26 SANTA CLARA L. REV. 1 (1986).

62. Mochizuki v. United States, No. 96-5986 (C.D. Cal., filed Aug. 27, 1996). On July 12,1998, the U.S. Justice Department announced that it had reached a settlement with theplaintiffs. The settlement consists of a brief letter of regret from President Clinton and anagreement to pay each surviving Japanese Latin American internee $5,000 out of fundsallocated under the 1988 Civil Liberties Act after all Japanese American claimants have beenpaid. Not only is this amount significantly less than the $20,000 paid to each JapaneseAmerican internee, but the claims of Japanese Latin American internees are expected toexceed the available funds. A hearing to finalize the settlement is scheduled for November,

1998. See Aurelio Rojas, U.S. Offers Internees Apology, S.F. CHRON., June 13, 1998, at A1; Lena H.Sun, U.S. Apologizes for Internment, WASH. POST, June 13, 1998, at A04.

63. See generally JOHN EMMERSON, THEJAPANESE THREAD 125-49 (1978) (describing thetreatment of Japanese Peruvians); C. HARVEY GARDINER, PAWNS IN A TRIANGLE OF HATE: THEPERUVIANJAPANESE AND THE UNITED STATES (1981) (same); WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 54-66(describing treatment of Japanese Latin-Americans).There were Japanese Latin Americans taken from numerous other countries as well, but by farthe largest number came from Peru. See WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 60 (eighty percent of theLatin-American Japanese deportees were from Peru); see also GARDINER, supra note 63, at 134,


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20 Japanese began emigrating to Peru in 1899 for the same reasonsthey came to the United Statesland, jobs, and the opportunity to make a

better life for their children.

64

By the 1930s, many were economicallysuccessful and, like Japanese Americans on the West Coast, had becometargets of local hostility and racism.

65Nonetheless, by 1940, there were at

least 25,000 Peruvians of Japanese descent, some of whom were Peruviancitizens.

66

21 Although Peru was a non-belligerent during World War II, itentered into an agreement to promote hemispheric unity

67and in 1942,

acceded to U.S. pressure to break diplomatic ties with the Axis powers.68

Peru accepted a U.S. proposal that all Axis officials be repatriated throughthe United States, and then asked the United States to take non-officials aswell.

69These were civilian men, women, and children, both Japanese and

Peruvian citizens.70

Some "volunteered" for repatriation, and many of thewomen and children left in order to be reunited with their husbands and

fathers. Large numbers were simply kidnapped by the Peruvian police,however, and turned over to U.S. officials.

71Very few of these individuals

had been classified as "dangerous" to either Peruvian or U.S. security.72

tbl. 9 (showing that only 18 Bolivians and 495 Peruvians of Japanese descent remained in U.S.custody as of Jan. 31, 1946.)

64. See generally EMMERSON, supra note 63, at 130-33 (describing Japanese migration toPeru); GARDINER, supra note 63, at 3-11 (same).

65. See EMMERSON, supra note 63, at 132 ("[t]he patent success of the Japanese won themenmity"); GARDINER, supra note 63, at 8; WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 60.

66. The Peruvian census of 1940 reported 17,598 Japanese citizens and 8,790 secondgeneration Peruvians of Japanese descent, for a total "Japanese" population of 25,888. SeeEMMERSON, supra note 63, at 131; see also Memorandum (no. 7288) from R. Henry Norweb toSecretary of State, encl. No. 1 (July 7, 1943) (on file with author). The State Department filesalso contain a translation of an article entitled "Japanese in Peru," which states that in 1940

there were 50,000 Peruvians of Japanese descent. See Letter (May 27, 1943) (summarizingJapanese in Peru) (on file with author).

67. See WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 58-59; see also GARDINER, supra note 63, at 16-17.68. See GARDINER, supra note 63, at 18-19.69. See GARDINER, supra note 63, at 19, 23 tbl. 4.70. Emmerson says, "From April 4, 1942 until July 9, 1943, during the period I was in

Lima, the embassy participated actively in the expulsion from the country and transportationto the United States of 1,024 Japanese, of whom 399 were women and children." EMMERSON,supra note 63, at 139; accord GARDINER, supra note 63, at 41 (noting American authorities'insistence that "citizenship should not stand in the way of their efforts to deport individualsfrom Peru.").A Department of State, Special War Problems Division [hereinafter "SWP"] report, dated July6, 1944, states: "Following Peru's severance of diplomatic relations in April 1942 with the Axisnations, 569 Germans and 1,737 Japanese nationals have been removed from Peru forinternment in the United States." See U.S. Department of State, SWP, Report No. 6467 (July 6,1944) (on file with author.)

71. See GARDINER, supra note 63, at 24, 27-29, 67-69; WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 61. TheSWP memorandum on the "Control of Japanese in Peru," supra note 70, states that "throughpolitical influence and bribery," a number of "dangerous Japanese leaders" have avoideddeportation. Letter No. 7314, dated July 10, 1943, from the embassy in Lima to the Secretaryof State, states that a Mrs. Chieko Nishino had been arrested and sent to join her husband in aU.S. internment camp despite her insistence that she would kill herself if deported. See Letter(No. 7314) from George M. Butler, First Secretary of U.S. Embassy, to U.S. Secretary of State(July 10, 1993) (on file with author).

72. Emmerson says:


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American consuls in Peru were instructed not to issue visas to JapanesePeruvians, and passports and other documents were illegally seized from

those who had them.

73

One group of men was sent via Panama, where theyspent several weeks at forced labor, clearing jungle in the Canal Zone.74

Others were shipped directly to San Francisco or New Orleans. Uponarrival, all were turned over to I.N.S. officials who then declared them to bein the country illegally.

75The Department of Justice, through the

Immigration and Naturalization Service, held the Japanese Peruvians andother Japanese Latin Americans in concentration camps

76in Texas for the

duration of the war.77

22 The United States' motivation for going to all of this trouble andexpense, most of which violated both U.S. and international law,

78appears

Lacking incriminating evidence, we established the criteria of leadershipand influence in the community to determine those Japanese to be

expelled. We prepared lists, which we presented to the Peruvianauthorities. These authorities, committed at least personally if notofficially, to the expulsion of all Japanese, treated our proposed listsrather lightly.

EMMERSON, supra note 63, at 143; accord GARDINER, supra note 63, at 16-17, 27-28, 39-40, 44 tbl.5, 67-68; WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 63.State Department Memorandum No. 6239 from Ambassador Norweb to the Secretary of State,dated March 3, 1943, indicates that of the 119 Japanese Peruvians who were evacuated on theS/S Frederick C. Johnson on February 24, 1943, 15 were recommended for expulsion by theEmbassy. Memorandum from R. Henry Norweb to U.S. Secretary of State (Mar. 3, 1943) (onfile with author). Another State Department letter entitled War Problems, dated August 24,1944, notes that the new Peruvian ambassador had been "sent to the United States to get rid ofthe Japanese in Peru and to buy matches and that he was not interested in any othermatters . . . ." Letter from A.E.C. to Keeley (Aug. 24, 1944) (on file with author).

73. See GARDINER, supra note 63, at 29, 41.74. Cf. id. at 69 (describing their living conditions in Panama).

75. Cf. id. at 46, 70 (describing claims of their illegal entry); WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 64(same).

76. While some consider this term too harsh, Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, calledthem "fancy-named concentration camps." WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 18; accord ROGERDANIELS, CONCENTRATION CAMPS USA: JAPANESE AMERICANS AND WORLD WAR II (1972).While these camps were far from the death camps run by the Nazis, the parallel was not loston the world. Michi Weglyn reports: "In his article, 'The Man Behind a Famous Court Case,'(Pacific Citizen, February 13, 1970), Ray Okamura wrote: 'Gordon [Hirabayashi] had a grimand thought-provoking footnote: "The Nazi defendants at the Nuremberg Tribunal cited the

Hirabayashi and Korematsu decisions as a defense."'" WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 291 n.14.77. These camps were located in the Texas towns of Kenedy, Seagoville and Crystal City.

See GARDINER, supra note 63, at 29-31, 36-37, 58-61. [Weglyn: at this time, no evid. ofmistreatment of Americans held by Japanese].

78. The Alien Enemies Act, 50 U.S.C. 21-23 (1988), only allowed the executive to internor deport enemy aliens. See id. 21. The United States was a party to hemispheric securityarrangements, but they only allowed for the restraint or removal of "certain dangerous alien

enemies." Proclamation No. 2685, 60 Stat. 1342 (1946) (citing adopted May 21, 1943, EmergencyAdvisory Committee for Political Defense Res. XX; adoptedJan. 28, 1942, Conference of ForeignMinisters Res. XVII); accord EMMERSON, supra note 63, at 126. Weglyn states:By early 1943, the Justice Department . . . had become greatly alarmed at the number ofinternees being sent up. Worse, it had come to its attention that many being held under theAlien Enemies Act were not enemy Japanese but Peruvian nationals, thus aliens of a friendlynation; and that little or no evidence supported the Peruvian Government's contention thattheir deportees were dangerous.WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 63.


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to have been a desire for hostages to be exchanged for Americans held inthe Japanese-occupied territories.

79Thus, even though concern about

hemispheric security had diminished by October 1942, Secretary of StateHull, noting that there were 3300 American citizens still in China, 3000 inthe Philippines, and 700 in Japan proper, recommended that there be nolet-up in the hemispheric removals of "all the dangerous Germans andItalians" and "all the Japanese . . . for internment in the United States."

80

This was not a new idea. In 1936, George Patton, then Chief of MilitaryIntelligence, suggested a plan "[t]o arrest and intern certain persons of theOrange race [Japanese] who are considered most inimical to Americaninterests, or those whom, due to their position and influence in the Orangecommunity, it is desirable to retain as hostages."

81In January 1942, Major

Karl Bendetson, the architect of the Japanese American internment, notedthat "the 'hostage idea' has not been sufficiently explored . . . ."

82

23 Over 500 Japanese Peruvians were in fact included in the two

exchanges that took place in 1942 and 1943.83

Evidence suggests thatattempts to arrange a third exchange fell through at least in part because ofthe Japanese government's reaction to the hostage taking and to the harshtreatment of Japanese Americans held in the Tule Lake camp.

84This left

79. WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 54-56; see also State Department officer A.E. Clattenberg,

Outline of Negotiations for Exchange of American Civilians in Japanese Hands (Oct. 12, 1943)(on file with author); Memorandum (June 15, 1942) (on file with author) (summarizing"American-Japanese exchange agreement") (on file with author); Letter from Francis Biddle,Attorney General to Secretary of State (June 28, 1943) (agreeing to withdraw the JusticeDepartment's objections to the repatriation of 12 Japanese nationals to avoid endangering "theentire Japanese repatriation negotiations," in light of "the primary objective of obtaining thereturn of American nationals.") (on file with author).

80. WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 62-63 (emphasis added); accord supra note 78 (regarding thelegal implications of imprisoning persons not found to be "dangerous").

81. WEGLYN, supra note 61, app. 7, at 182.82. Id. In August 1941, months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Congressman John

Dingell of Michigan suggested to the President that:we remind Nippon that unless [Japan allows the departure of onehundred U.S. citizens reportedly detained in Japan] within forty-eighthours, the Government of the United States will cause the forcefuldetention or imprisonment in a concentration camp of ten thousand alienJapanese in Hawaii; the ratio of Japanese hostages held by America beingone hundred for every American detained by the Mikado's Government.It would be well to further remind Japan that there are perhaps onehundred fifty thousand additional alien Japanese in the United Stateswho will be held in a reprisal reserve . . . .

Id. at 55.83. See GARDINER, supra note 63, at 48, 84-85.84. In June 1944, Secretary of State Hull wrote President Roosevelt that "the detention of

[the Japanese Americans] and incidents that have occurred in our detention centers have

resulted in protests from the Japanese Government and have supplied that Government withpretexts for refusing to negotiate for further repatriation of our nationals in Japanese custodyor for their relief." WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 222. The Clattenberg "Outline," points out the"tremendous resentment" and "a lessening of Japanese interest in the exchange of nationals"due, in part, to reports from Japanese repatriated from the U.S. See Clattenberg, supra note 79(manuscript at 3, on file with author). On the determination of "loyalty" and the segregationat Tule Lake, see WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 146-173; cf. Tokyo Makes Most of Tule Lake Riots ,CHI. SUN, Nov. 15, 1943, reprinted in id. at 15 (describing reactions to the riots there).Referring to the forced deportation of Chieko Nishino from Peru, see supra note 71, a State


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over 1300 Japanese Peruvians imprisoned in the United States.85 At the endof the war, Peru refused to allow these people to return.

86Pressured by the

United States, it eventually agreed to the return of those who were eitherPeruvian citizens or married to citizens.87

24 In March 1946, a full seven months after Japan's surrender, ActingSecretary of State Dean Acheson asked Attorney General (later SupremeCourt Justice) Tom Clark to inform the Japanese Peruvians that, becausethere was no "clear evidence" that they posed a threat to "the security andwelfare of the Americas," they were "no longer subject to restraint."

88

Although the U.S. Justice Department recognized that it was illegal toforcibly repatriate the Japanese Peruvians to Japan,

89it refused them

permission to stay in the United States.90

Ironically, the arrest warrant of

Department memorandum voices concern that the related "unfavorable propaganda" couldeffect "our exchange negotiations with Japan" should Mrs. Nishino commit suicide.

Memorandum from J.K.W. to the Ambassador (July 9, 1943) (on file with author); see also BriefReview of Impressions Obtained at Immigration Detention Stations at Kenedy, Crystal Cityand Seagoville, Texas (July 9, 1943) (noting that the physical conditions in the camps were sopoor as to "most likely produce on the part of the enemy retaliation against our Americans")(on file with author); Memorandum from Spanish Embassy (June 5, 1944), reprinted inWEGLYN, supra note 61, at 185 (transmitting Japanese government's protest over theinternment of Japanese residents of Peru and Bolivia).

85. See GARDINER, supra note 63, at 116 tbl. 8.86. A State Department memorandum of Nov. 2, 1945 states that "the Peruvian

government has indicated on a number of occasions that it does not look with favor on thereturn to Peru of the Japanese . . . now interned in the United States." Memorandum (Nov. 2,1945) (on file with author).

87. See GARDINER, supra note 63, at 169-171; WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 64. According toGardiner, "[f]ewer than 5 percent of the deported Peruvian Japaneseconsiderably fewerthan one hundred personswere allowed to return to South America." GARDINER, supra note63, at 174.

88. GARDINER, supra note 63, at 136.89. A "War Problems" memorandum dated September 1, 1944 noted that the author "was

informed by Mr. Ennis [Department of Justice, Director of the Alien Enemy Control Unit] thatthe law precludes Justice [referring to the Department of Justice] from holding non-alienenemies in an interned status beyond a period of three months." Memorandum (Sept. 1, 1944)(entitled "War Problems") (on file with author). According to Gardiner, the JusticeDepartment "insisted that it could justify the detention of the Latin American Japanese only ifsome satisfactory means were instituted to determine whether the enemy aliens weredangerous." GARDINER, supra note 63, at 64; accord id. at 73-74.On July 14, 1945 and April 10, 1946, Presidential Proclamations entitled "Removal of EnemyAliens" were issued, specifically allowing the deportation of interned Latin Americanspursuant to the Alien Enemy Act. See Proclamation No. 2685, 60 Stat. 1342 (1946);Proclamation No. 2655, 59 Stat. 370 (1945).

90. See EMMERSON, supra note 63,at 148-149. A U.S. State Department Notice to theInternees from Latin America, dated Jan. 4, 1946, explained that the internees were being heldpursuant to the Alien Enemy Act, and that they could not remain in the U.S. after release from

custody because their "entry into the United States was not made under the immigrationlaws." U.S. Dept. of State, Notice to the Internees from Latin America (Jan. 4, 1946)(manuscript at 3, on file with author); accordTruman Acts on Axis Nationals, BALTIMORE SUN,Sept. 9, 1945 (from U.S. Dept. of State Alien Enemy Control Section file), noting that thePresident by proclamation gave the State Department "the authority to get rid of 1,300Japanese and 900 German aliens who were arrested in Latin America during the war andbrought to this country for interment." According to the article, the internees included "spies,saboteurs, provocateurs and propagandists." Id. See also State Department Memorandum ofMeeting dated Aug. 31, 1944 on the subject of the "Postwar disposition of interned alien


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one Iwamori Sakasegawa stated that he was to be deported because "hewas an immigrant not in possession of a valid immigration visa[,] . . . did

not present an unexpired passport[, was] an alien ineligible to citizenshipand was not entitled to enter the United States."91

Some "700 men and theirdependents" had no choice but to allow themselves to be deported toJapan.

92The plight of the remaining 365 Japanese Peruvians came to the

attention of Wayne Collins, a remarkable attorney who was carrying on aone-man battle against the forced "repatriation" of Japanese Americans.

93

Collins eventually got the remaining deportations halted and foundemployment for many of them at Seabrook Farms in New Jersey, a frozenfood processing plant (now Birdseye) that had used German POW laborduring the war.

94Some in this final group were later able to legalize their

immigration status and become U.S. citizens.95

None of the abductedJapanese Peruvians, even those who became U.S. citizens, received theredress eventually provided to Japanese Americans under the Civil

Liberties Act of 1988 because that Act limits redress to persons who, at thetime of internment, were American citizens or permanent residents.

96The

class action brought in Mochizuki v. United States is challenging thatlimitation.

97

25 There is no doubt that the kidnapping, deportation, incarceration,holding hostage, and forced repatriation of the Japanese Peruvians violatedinternational law.

98Forcibly transporting civilians from a non-belligerent

enemies received from the other American republics," anticipating "difficulties in disposing"of them but determining that none of the internees should be allowed to remain in the U.S.,despite the fact that "some individuals sent here for internment were undoubtedly relativelyharmless." Memorandum of Meeting (Aug. 31, 1944).

91. GARDINER, supra note 63, at 138.92. See WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 64. A letter from the Officer in Charge of the Santa Fe,

New Mexico Department of Justice Internment Camp to the State Department, dated April 3,1946, lists the 81 Japanese Peruvians held in the camp and notes that of that number, only 4were willing to accept voluntary repatriation to Japan. See Letter from Ivan Williams, Officerin Charge, U.S. Dep't of Justice/I.N.S. Internment Camp, Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Dep't ofState, Alien Control Section (Apr. 3, 1946) (on file with author).

93. Collins, who had represented Korematsu and Endo in their challenges to theinternment, also represented hundreds of Japanese Americans whom the U.S. governmentwas trying to deport. See GARDINER, supra note 63, at 141-42; WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 253-65. Because the majority of the incarcerated Japanese Americans were U.S. citizens, the term"repatriation" is inaccurate. Nevertheless, it is frequently used in this context, furthering theperception that these Americans were "foreign."

94. See GARDINER, supra note 63, at 142; WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 64-65; see also Letterfrom Albert Clattenburg, State Department, to the Peruvian Embassy (Aug. 26, 1946)(identifying eight Japanese Peruvians employed at Seabrook Farms and noting that 355Japanese from Peru remained in custody) (on file with author).

95. See WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 66; cf. GARDINER, supra note 63, at 175 (discussing

Japanese Peruvians who became U.S. citizens).96. See The Civil Liberties Act of 1988, 50 U.S.C. 1989b-7(2) (1990). Furthermore, the Act

excludes persons who "relocated" to a country between Dec. 7, 1941 and Sept. 2, 1945 whilethe United States was at war with that country. See id.

97. Mochizuki v. United States, No. 96-5986 (C.D. Cal., filed Aug. 27, 1996) (on file withauthor); see First Amended Civil Rights Complaint,Mochizuki, (filed Feb. 3, 1997) (on file withauthor).

98. According to a March 1998 submission of International Educational Development tothe 54th Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights:


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to a belligerent country and holding them as hostages for exchange wasprohibited at that time by the laws and customs of war.

99In fact, the

drafters of the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection ofCivilian Persons in Time of War noted that they were compelled by theevents of World War II to articulate prohibitions on deportations that hadpreviously been considered unnecessary because it was assumed thatcivilized nations no longer resorted to such practices.

100John Emmerson,

the State Department official who supervised the deportations for the U.S.Embassy in Lima, later acknowledged that the program "was clearly aviolation of human rights and was not justified by any plausible threat tothe security of the Western Hemisphere."

101Interdepartmental

At the time this program was in operation, international humanitarianlaw clearly forbade war-time abduction, incarceration, and deportation ofcivilians from friendly countries. Exchange of civilians from a friendly

country to an enemy third party was viewed as especially serious and inthis case, met the criteria of hostage-taking. . . . International law alsoforbade slavery and forced labour (the conditions of the Latin Americansheld in the Panama camps clearly met the then-existing prohibitionagainst slavery and forced labour) whether in peacetime or in war. TheCharter of the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg Charter), theCharter of the Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo Charter) and theearlier Control Council Law 10 set out these acts as war crimes andcrimes against humanity at the time of World War II.

Arbitrary Detention of Latin Americans of Japanese Ancestry (Mar., 1998) (manuscript at 2, onfile with author). See generally LARAE LARKIN, THE LEGITIMACY IN INTERNATIONALLAW OF THEDETENTION AND INTERNMENT OF ALIENS AND MINORITIES IN THE INTEREST OF NATIONALSECURITY (1996) (discussing detention and internment of aliens and minorities in authoritarianand democratic states); Alfred M. de Zayas, International Law and Mass Population Transfers, 16HARV. INT'L L.J. 207 (1975) (exploring the difference between legal and illegal transfers ofpopulations); Jean-Marie Henckaerts, Deportation and Transfer of Civilians in Time of War, 26

VAND. J. TRANSNAT'L L. 469 (1993) (arguing that states should be prohibited from deportingcivilians during time of war).

99. This was recognized by the United States government as early as 1863, when it wasstated in General Order No. 100 of the U.S. Army ("Lieber's Code") that "private citizens areno longer murdered, enslaved, or carried off to distant parts. . . ." RICHARD SHELLYHARTIGAN, LIEBER'S CODE AND THE LAW OF WAR 49 (1983). According to GeorgSchwarzenberger, at the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907, "[t]o raise the issue of theillegality of the deportation of the population of occupied territories was consideredunnecessary; the illegality was taken for granted." GEORG SCHWARZENBERGER , 2INTERNATIONAL LAW AS APPLIED BY INTERNATIONAL COURTS AND TRIBUNALS 227 (1968). In1924, the Belgo-German Mixed Arbitral Tribunal stated in Moriaux v. Germany thatdeportation of civilians was a " 'most flagrant and atrocious breach of international law.'" SeeSCHWARZENBERGER, supra, at 228-29. Beginning in 1921, the International Red Cross beganarticulating prohibitions on the mass deportation of civilians and the taking of hostages, butthese were not finalized before the outbreak of World War II. See DONALD A.WELLS, WARCRIMES AND LAWS OF WAR 50-51 (2d. ed. 1991).

100. "The 1907 Hague Regulations do not provide an explicit prohibition of deportations.The Commentary to Geneva IV explains that this was probably so 'because the practice ofdeporting persons was regarded at the beginning of this century as having fallen intoabeyance.'" Henckaerts, supra note 98, at 480; accord de Zayas, supra note 98, at 210-211 (notingthat the 1907 Hague Regulations were silent on the issue of deportations because deportationswere no longer practiced in "so-called civilized warfare."). It is also interesting to note thatone of the defenses raised at the Nuremberg trials was the United States' treatment ofJapanese Americans. See WEGLYN, supra note 61, at 75.

101. EMMERSON, supra note 63, at 149.


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correspondence makes it clear that the U.S. State Department was largelyunconcerned about the legality of interning Japanese Peruvians, while th

crossing the border - the interdependence of foreign policy and racial justice in the united states

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